01:52, 22nd Feb 2011
ap0calypse: Rejected

See post #28

You might have optimized it badly, when I click on the map to host it, wc3 crashes (which usually happens when you tick bad stuff with optimizer
I'll try it when it's fixed (and edit this post ofc)

EDIT: Sooo;
-I've been impressed by the sound effects and the whole stuff with the spirit healer is really good
-I think the terrain could be much better, much epic (you know, a big citadel, a deep cave ...) this is way too flat here. In an ORPG terrain must b great ! (check gaias )
-The models you used for the heroes are great, BUUUT, the skills are those of Warcraft ... you cannot do an ORPG like that ! I hope you'll update this
-I couldnt play a lot, but the level design itself also seems too simplistic, the creeps are just put there and there without a real coherence
-Btw for a first map, it's good and it has a great potential Keep up the good work !

You should also make a quest in which you write the commands, not in the loading screen !

Err, Give me a minute. Something messed up real bad upon ''map protection'' so it seems.

Hey at least my map is protected? heh.
Re-adding the custom preview image and lets try again.

Edit:
Fixed. Seemed to be a problem with the last minute added ''Custom preview image''. I will upload one with the fixed preview in a bit. But this one works.

Please change that damn blue text, it burns into my eyeballs!

Done. So it wasn't just my monitor? heh.
Also, Map update incoming before i go to bed.
Added Preview image.
Silly in 2nd town.
Perfected some scripts (Bug fixing takes forever)
Tried to script some of the arena left bottom. But at the same time i broke it. Bare with me on that one. None of value was lost for now.

GolluM_KoMe said:

EDIT: Sooo;
-I've been impressed by the sound effects and the whole stuff with the spirit healer is really good
-I think the terrain could be much better, much epic (you know, a big citadel, a deep cave ...) this is way too flat here. In an ORPG terrain must b great ! (check gaias )
-The models you used for the heroes are great, BUUUT, the skills are those of Warcraft ... you cannot do an ORPG like that ! I hope you'll update this
-I couldnt play a lot, but the level design itself also seems too simplistic, the creeps are just put there and there without a real coherence
-Btw for a first map, it's good and it has a great potential Keep up the good work !

You should also make a quest in which you write the commands, not in the loading screen !

Click to expand...

First of all thanks for the feedback!
- a hint to the spirit healer music, it is actually from another game. However re-cut and edited to fit the scene quite nicely (It has been a bit of a solo project for me. As virus is solo on the maps general design.)
- The terrain up to the level 25 block in the game is pretty much going to stay the same. the towns (1 and 2) MIGHT be remodeled (I must say the starting village BESIDES the ''hero pick'' area is pretty static and square.) It is on the virus's to-do list, But on a very low priority (as we plan to get the leveling and modeling done and keep details on for at the end of it all, unless we feel like it.) Then again, the current snow and wasteland areas south side of the map are WAY to open and even i demand those changed. Once players get there (we design quests for that given area) this will also be changed, levels.. humps and bumps you name it. Then again this is Virus's job, so i make no promises yet.
- Models as they are in version 0.0.3 are probably going to stick, as we had better ones but most are to high detailed for the 8mb file limit. we changed them around and tested a lot. but this set up seems to fit nicely.
- The skills are going to stay as they are. Hero's that are not available to you YET are at this moment might have there skills changed. But besides the rangers Multi shot ability, Most will be standard skills. We might go find new ''visual effects'' for some as these are probably easy to get. But that again is lower on our priority list at the moment.
- The creeps seem to be fine for us at the moment. They are spaced at as if they were to close you were to pull the whole forest at once. but up to level 25ish they are all put to stay (There will be more quests for these mobs, as some just stand there being useless indeed.)

For the rest, Thanks for this useful feedback, I hope to get some more in the near future. We try to update as much as we can!

The skills are going to stay as they are

Click to expand...

I think this is a big mistake

a hint to the spirit healer music, it is actually from another game

Click to expand...

The music is really good, but what's its size ? I'm pretty sure it's way too big

GolluM_KoMe said:

I think this is a big mistake
The music is really good, but what's its size ? I'm pretty sure it's way too big

Click to expand...

Hmm we do not really have any experience with custom skills to start with. Getting them in would mean alot of work and time we can spend on the rest. I might (MIGHT) try and pick some after the rest of the map is done. But for now i will stick with these. Then again, most maps of ORPG we played had ''some'' custom skills. but nothing to be all proud about really.

And the music is tiny models and skills arent my part, but music conversion is. 32kbits/s and Mono (Terrible as mono is, it does split file size in 2) That intro music might be around 300KB or so (quick estimation, didn't check.) all in /mp3 format of course. Then again i do not remember WC3 supporting anything besides Mp3 and Wave files.

Hmm we do not really have any experience with custom skills to start with. Getting them in would mean alot of work and time we can spend on the rest

Click to expand...

There are plenty of great skills already done on this website, there are done for you

I found a very strange "Bugg"... "Archer" has a skill to switch attack style, Melee/Range attacks. Everytime you use it, your damage increases. My damage was 70.000-71000^^

Dazebig said:

I found a very strange "Bugg"... "Archer" has a skill to switch attack style, Melee/Range attacks. Everytime you use it, your damage increases. My damage was 70.000-71000^^

Click to expand...

Thank you for your report. This issue has been noticed and addressed by The Virus. Next version upload this bug will not exist anymore. For now, Please stick to not switching at all.

Edit: Release is out. Enjoy not being bugged!

the only thing the impress me is that windmill model you got there, LOL! just kidding awesome map! good work by the way!

Looks pretty good but if what Gollum KoMe says is true, i think it will happend to me... im gona test it anyway...
Good Picture in Loading screen... good idea

***EDITED***

Oks i already find 2 bugs just in the begining... I can only choose one tipe of hero, the healing shaman the others dont work... and the other is when says that i must go talk to the high elf in the docks, nothing happens... and more, WTF of command is that "-ding" that increases the level of the hero in 1?? and At last, one question, how do you make 150 max levels?? on my editor the max is 100...

Great Chief Aeon said:

Oks i already find 2 bugs just in the begining... I can only choose one tipe of hero, the healing shaman the others dont work... and the other is when says that i must go talk to the high elf in the docks, nothing happens... and more, WTF of command is that "-ding" that increases the level of the hero in 1?? and At last, one question, how do you make 150 max levels?? on my editor the max is 100...

Click to expand...

You give a terrible review, yet you dare ask us how we did something. Meh fine, i am not the worst.

if you were to read my carefully written lap of text above, it names exactly what 4 hero's are available to you. but here it is: Melee Tank, Melee DPS, Archer DPS, Shaman Healing.
And for the women in the docks, Unless virus screwed that one up before i uploaded this (which i highly doubt) you just run up to her (like really close. you have to ''interact'') And she will give you the quest which opens the city's doors to you. (After BETA we will stop everyone from -repick after this gate has been opened. Repick is possible at any moment for testing reasons.)

Furthermore: the ''wtf'' command IS one of our BETA commands. It is there to help you test. I have not read the quest text, the virus made that. But i am sure it says so quite clearly.

How to pass editor limits such as 100 levels and 1000mana use on spells? Shift+click should fix that.

Thank you for your review.

Smileynator said:

You give a terrible review, yet you dare ask us how we did something. Meh fine, i am not the worst.

if you were to read my carefully written lap of text above, it names exactly what 4 hero's are available to you. but here it is: Melee Tank, Melee DPS, Archer DPS, Shaman Healing.
And for the women in the docks, Unless virus screwed that one up before i uploaded this (which i highly doubt) you just run up to her (like really close. you have to ''interact'') And she will give you the quest which opens the city's doors to you. (After BETA we will stop everyone from -repick after this gate has been opened. Repick is possible at any moment for testing reasons.)

Furthermore: the ''wtf'' command IS one of our BETA commands. It is there to help you test. I have not read the quest text, the virus made that. But i am sure it says so quite clearly.

How to pass editor limits such as 100 levels and 1000mana use on spells? Shift+click should fix that.

Thank you for your review.

Click to expand...

Thanks, but still not working that to me
i really sorry, i made exactly what you say, and only 1 hero still working, and i tryed both the black-haired and blond-haired girls on docks and nothing happened, really close... About the levels thanks, i just needed to know, i wanna have 200 levels on my map, if possible, because will be very hard in the final, so i need more levels, and 100 are not suficient... Thanks
about the command, i was just kidding, i see that was soposed to be only in beta version... if you can, add a Anti-Cheaters trigger, for example what callahan make in his campaign about World of Genesia, if you use a cheat, your hero loose high amounts of atributes, for exemple, make in your map, if used cheats make lost one level and lost all his gold, so cheater dont use it... i see that it works in single player, (Because of that im giving this obviously hint) and ofcourse in multiplayer games cheats dont work...

AWESOME WORK!!! 4/5

Ah! you should also add a custom music for the map... will make it seems to be Epic

Great Chief Aeon said:

Thanks, but still not working that to me
i really sorry, i made exactly what you say, and only 1 hero still working, and i tryed both the black-haired and blond-haired girls on docks and nothing happened, really close...
if you can, add a Anti-Cheaters trigger, for example what callahan make in his campaign about World of Genesia, if you use a cheat, your hero loose high amounts of atributes, for exemple, make in your map, if used cheats make lost one level and lost all his gold, so cheater dont use it... i see that it works in single player.

Ah! you should also add a custom music for the map... will make it seems to be Epic

Click to expand...

Hmm odd. It is supposed to be the blond haired girl left bottom of the docks. she is a bit shy thus hiding under a tree. Do note she hes no exclamation ''!'' mark yet. We were in the middle of adding those to our quest givers.

Anti-cheat is something we just talked about. We plan to either disable SOLO play at all. Or make cheating a living hell. As in: End the mission (fail the map) Make UI return to main menu (Lost the game as well) Corrupting any saves that happen AFTER cheating. or even make your UI uncontrollable and the map go nuts. (Lets see how you like 10 bosses spawned directly at your feet while your mouse doesn't work anymore.) So yes, Anti-cheat should be covered. But will be implemented after beta.

We are aware that music has a great impact on the game play. We plan to add more in the future. (Some is already there, it is just not used yet.) I will lift you a tip of the curtain: The Zandalar tribes ancient war-drums who recently left the World of Warcraft, Will sound once more in our map!

Thanks for the review, I hope you enjoy our next release versions.

Smileynator said:

Hmm odd. It is supposed to be the blond haired girl left bottom of the docks. she is a bit shy thus hiding under a tree. Do note she hes no exclamation ''!'' mark yet. We were in the middle of adding those to our quest givers.

Anti-cheat is something we just talked about. We plan to either disable SOLO play at all. Or make cheating a living hell. As in: End the mission (fail the map) Make UI return to main menu (Lost the game as well) Corrupting any saves that happen AFTER cheating. or even make your UI uncontrollable and the map go nuts. (Lets see how you like 10 bosses spawned directly at your feet while your mouse doesn't work anymore.) So yes, Anti-cheat should be covered. But will be implemented after beta.

We are aware that music has a great impact on the game play. We plan to add more in the future. (Some is already there, it is just not used yet.) I will lift you a tip of the curtain: The Zandalar tribes ancient war-drums who recently left the World of Warcraft, Will sound once more in our map!

Thanks for the review, I hope you enjoy our next release versions.

Click to expand...

Oks

I always enjoy any map, i just need to like play or/and it need to work...
Oh!! About the girl... She is in there, near a "Human Frigate" (Original name of the ship), but the Exclamation is not there...

About the Cheats, i think you should not be so far bad to the players, or they will not play the map...
Good idea, is to lower his atributes, make him lose all his resources, loose hero level, and to make he dont try anymore make the hero die and revive only after 5 minuts or more... So he dont try it, or simply make the map dont work in single-player mode...

downloading now.gonna test it. great map 5/5

Many thanks! Keep reviewing.

Oh my god... that was just... plain... horrific, I think I'd rather stare at a maggot under a microscope... (( Actually thats a pretty funny sight))

Exagerrations aside... According to my rating system you've earned 2/5, both of which are free points...

Lets make this an ul then to simplify it...

-Okay you used almost all basic powers, the scaling on powers is fine, but you didn't even change the effects a little? Maybe the pictures? Nonne et Imo that is a simple requirment (( Protip: Nonne et means "No? and" in latin)) I have an issue with you simply increasing crit chance on the archer dps, there is such a thing as bonus damage and increased crit multiplier, it's in the basic power.
-The summons on a few powers are under-powered at high levels, for example the ulti of the healer have 1600 each and very low damage, the skeletons from max black arrow, 340 hp about and about 18-21 damage...
-The enemies are OVER-powered for example as the tank, I went to go explore I found the level 70, about, magnataurs they have what 30k health, 3x more than me, 400 chaos damage, 100 less than me, which is also 200 more than the archer... and was magic immune... well let's just say I gave up
-I found the level 80 enemie had their base damages and 40k health... I hate to see the level 150's...
-At certain levels your ultimate, if fully invested, costs more mana than you have
-The quest-giver after opening the gates did not work for me, so I didn't bother getting into quests
-Without being the tank I died before I made it past the centaurs... at max level...

Overall, I found it to be, very bad and requiring ALOT of work that should have originally been done, might be more that I noticed and forgot but, for now, that is all

Dragonofcat said:

-Okay you used almost all basic powers, the scaling on powers is fine, but you didn't even change the effects a little? Maybe the pictures? Nonne et Imo that is a simple requirment (( Protip: Nonne et means "No? and" in latin)) I have an issue with you simply increasing crit chance on the archer dps, there is such a thing as bonus damage and increased crit multiplier, it's in the basic power.
-The summons on a few powers are under-powered at high levels, for example the ulti of the healer have 1600 each and very low damage, the skeletons from max black arrow, 340 hp about and about 18-21 damage...
-The enemies are OVER-powered for example as the tank, I went to go explore I found the level 70, about, magnataurs they have what 30k health, 3x more than me, 400 chaos damage, 100 less than me, which is also 200 more than the archer... and was magic immune... well let's just say I gave up
-I found the level 80 enemie had their base damages and 40k health... I hate to see the level 150's...
-At certain levels your ultimate, if fully invested, costs more mana than you have
-The quest-giver after opening the gates did not work for me, so I didn't bother getting into quests
-Without being the tank I died before I made it past the centaurs... at max level...

Overall, I found it to be, very bad and requiring ALOT of work that should have originally been done, might be more that I noticed and forgot but, for now, that is all

Click to expand...

Oh i love you already. Where to start? Lets see now shall we?
- Yes we used all the basic powers, We had complaints about this, we are busy replacing some effects and probably creating one custom spell per character to make the unique. This map is a beta, Details like this are the least of our worries for now.
- Then you complain about the damage multiplier. Well apparently you never had to balance a map, else you wouldn't be whining about how simple i tryed to make it. Once again, as stated in the description of the map. This is our very first shot at this. Cry if it makes you feel better.
- The powers are perfectly fine, Trust me. i will clarify later.
- Yes the black arrow skeletons aren't scaled. I should inform you that if you read the map changes logs in the description, it says that the black arrow and some other skills have been reimplemented since recently. Our early map versions didn't support mob respawn when the skeletons of the mobs were removed by black arrow etc. Ill get to it when i get some time free from school.
- Enemy's are exactly as we want them to be. You get hit by them and you do not get healed. Tough luck. As we have put in the map description about *counts in his head.. 1 2 3 4 maybe 5 times* the map is about teamwork, So either get 1 or 2 friends to play, or you are going to have 1 tough time doing so alone. the dynamic dungeons are going to be practically impossible for you. We even think we want to remove the 1 Player option all together after Beta.
- At certain levels your skills cost more then you can effort. That will teach you to over-stack in them! This is mend to be for just this reason.
- The quest givers after opening both gates work just fine, IF you bother to do the quest chain linking to them. (Hint: It has something to do with the pool of souls on your right hand of the main path)
- Good, Thank you for that information about the tank. If you'd read the description though, our map not yet supports it's level 150 characters. Because after level 15 you just run out of weapons to buff you up to par. This might be the only one on this list i maybe should have warned you for. Then again you should have been bringing yourself a healer and it would be a whole different story.

Thanks for the review, and i will gladly take your counter argument on the above statements.

yours sincerely,
Smileynator.

Smileynator said:

Oh i love you already. Where to start? Lets see now shall we?
- Yes we used all the basic powers, We had complaints about this, we are busy replacing some effects and probably creating one custom spell per character to make the unique. This map is a beta, Details like this are the least of our worries for now.
- Then you complain about the damage multiplier. Well apparently you never had to balance a map, else you wouldn't be whining about how simple i tryed to make it. Once again, as stated in the description of the map. This is our very first shot at this. Cry if it makes you feel better.
- The powers are perfectly fine, Trust me. i will clarify later.
- Yes the black arrow skeletons aren't scaled. I should inform you that if you read the map changes logs in the description, it says that the black arrow and some other skills have been reimplemented since recently. Our early map versions didn't support mob respawn when the skeletons of the mobs were removed by black arrow etc. Ill get to it when i get some time free from school.
- Enemy's are exactly as we want them to be. You get hit by them and you do not get healed. Tough luck. As we have put in the map description about *counts in his head.. 1 2 3 4 maybe 5 times* the map is about teamwork, So either get 1 or 2 friends to play, or you are going to have 1 tough time doing so alone. the dynamic dungeons are going to be practically impossible for you. We even think we want to remove the 1 Player option all together after Beta.
- At certain levels your skills cost more then you can effort. That will teach you to over-stack in them! This is mend to be for just this reason.
- The quest givers after opening both gates work just fine, IF you bother to do the quest chain linking to them. (Hint: It has something to do with the pool of souls on your right hand of the main path)
- Good, Thank you for that information about the tank. If you'd read the description though, our map not yet supports it's level 150 characters. Because after level 15 you just run out of weapons to buff you up to par. This might be the only one on this list i maybe should have warned you for. Then again you should have been bringing yourself a healer and it would be a whole different story.

Thanks for the review, and i will gladly take your counter argument on the above statements.

yours sincerely,
Smileynator.

Click to expand...

Here we go...
-As I said before no matter who you are, what map it is, if it was released, the heroes powers NEED to be custom in some way, I don't care who said anything about it before me, and by some I hope you mean all effects... and this map is a beta, it's the GREATEST of your worries, it's something that needs a large amount of work. It should be finished before the beta is over.
-Damage multiplier, as in the critical strike complaint I assume, you didn't address anything else I said, this would normally discredit your statment... And yes I have balanced a map before, the one I'm working on is very well balanced and the one that I released is also well balanced, being my first and second maps (http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/maps-564/forest-expansion-2-6c-159963/)
-What was your third point a response to?
-Don't you think thats something you should definatly have done? It ranks up there with the first one, I don't really care what the problem was before, if you fixed it but, didn't bother to fix the redone black arrow, it was a bad idea, you ignored what I said about the healer.
-I beta'd in one player because it was fast and simple, I can do a two player beta tomarrow, I made it through fine, but somethings were rediculous, dynamic dungeons were an irrelevant comment as they are not yet implemented, I think that for a map like this, it's unneccesary to remove single player, your screwed alone anyway.
-90% of players will go for an ultimate everytime it is available, You shouldn't be 'teaching' people a 'lesson' it's not your place, your making a map for them to enjoy, no one else does something like that, unless they play your map religiously, there is no point. Just increase the level skip requirment, or reduce mana cost.
-I saw only one quest-giver after the original, it did not work.
-Don't you think those items were something that should have been there already? Beta or not... are you trying to waste time on a second beta, or even third at your pace, only implementing parts... You could have alpha tested then beta... if you were going faster. While it doesn't need mobs for them yet, thats understandable, but items should be there, they take alot less effort... I finish all my items the first day on my new map.

I will be testing 2-player tomarrow. Yes, I was camping this thread. Just say five, don't count 'in your head', insults are unneccesary, I'm trying to help, even if I am using a firm hand.

Sincerely,
Dofc

Dragonofcat said:

Here we go...
-As I said before no matter who you are, what map it is, if it was released, the heroes powers NEED to be custom in some way, I don't care who said anything about it before me, and by some I hope you mean all effects... and this map is a beta, it's the GREATEST of your worries, it's something that needs a large amount of work. It should be finished before the beta is over.
-Damage multiplier, as in the critical strike complaint I assume, you didn't address anything else I said, this would normally discredit your statment... And yes I have balanced a map before, the one I'm working on is very well balanced and the one that I released is also well balanced, being my first and second maps (http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/maps-564/forest-expansion-2-6c-159963/)
-What was your third point a response to?
-Don't you think thats something you should definatly have done? It ranks up there with the first one, I don't really care what the problem was before, if you fixed it but, didn't bother to fix the redone black arrow, it was a bad idea, you ignored what I said about the healer.
-I beta'd in one player because it was fast and simple, I can do a two player beta tomarrow, I made it through fine, but somethings were rediculous, dynamic dungeons were an irrelevant comment as they are not yet implemented, I think that for a map like this, it's unneccesary to remove single player, your screwed alone anyway.
-90% of players will go for an ultimate everytime it is available, You shouldn't be 'teaching' people a 'lesson' it's not your place, your making a map for them to enjoy, no one else does something like that, unless they play your map religiously, there is no point. Just increase the level skip requirment, or reduce mana cost.
-I saw only one quest-giver after the original, it did not work.
-Don't you think those items were something that should have been there already? Beta or not... are you trying to waste time on a second beta, or even third at your pace, only implementing parts... You could have alpha tested then beta... if you were going faster. While it doesn't need mobs for them yet, thats understandable, but items should be there, they take alot less effort... I finish all my items the first day on my new map.

I will be testing 2-player tomarrow. Yes, I was camping this thread. Just say five, don't count 'in your head', insults are unneccesary, I'm trying to help, even if I am using a firm hand.

Sincerely,
Dofc

Click to expand...

- It should be finished before the beta is over. << We know. But programming events and content is more of a buzz for us at the moment, Besides i am the guy balancing the skills (and probably picking most of them as well.) And i just do not got the time for it due to studies. In due time. Beta is not over in a long shot.
- Nice to see you know what balance is. Though the_virus made a tower defense or 2. (never uploaded because we couldn't be assed to bug fix every single thing for something with SO many inside jokes for us) Though try and do a RPG map for a change, balancing 45 levels of skills is a shitload of work. And since i try to learn from doing it myself without anyones help, i think it is working just fine for now.
- nothing.
- Hmm, Black arrow just didn't get fixed yet. When corpses could be removed, we re-added the black arrows ''skeleton effect'' but didn't look into the dps of those skeletons yet. The ulti of the healer? I assume you mean the spirit of vengeance. All it does now is improve on time, and from 1 upto 3 spirits. Probably i will make the health scale as well. They are mainly to take aggro and take some damage for the healer and his party. Not for DPS reasons.
- Hmm single player is still in there because of testing reasons if you are to test mechanics. Not the game-play. We test every release before we actually upload it. So i hope you enjoy the 2/3player game tomorrow. It is highly recommended. i recommend at least 1 of you is a healer. healer/dps is doable but not recommended.
- If you want to have a higher level of that skill at the cost of more mana, That is all up to you. Played Two worlds 2? Or oblivion? You can have spells that cost just to much mana for you to use. Same applies here.
- We are still into that. Then again we should limit leveling to level 30 or 40 because of this. We have gear and quests up to that level.

Have fun doing the 2player game.

Smileynator

Smileynator said:

- It should be finished before the beta is over. << We know. But programming events and content is more of a buzz for us at the moment, Besides i am the guy balancing the skills (and probably picking most of them as well.) And i just do not got the time for it due to studies. In due time. Beta is not over in a long shot.
- Nice to see you know what balance is. Though the_virus made a tower defense or 2. (never uploaded because we couldn't be assed to bug fix every single thing for something with SO many inside jokes for us) Though try and do a RPG map for a change, balancing 45 levels of skills is a shitload of work. And since i try to learn from doing it myself without anyones help, i think it is working just fine for now.
- nothing.
- Hmm, Black arrow just didn't get fixed yet. When corpses could be removed, we re-added the black arrows ''skeleton effect'' but didn't look into the dps of those skeletons yet. The ulti of the healer? I assume you mean the spirit of vengeance. All it does now is improve on time, and from 1 upto 3 spirits. Probably i will make the health scale as well. They are mainly to take aggro and take some damage for the healer and his party. Not for DPS reasons.
- Hmm single player is still in there because of testing reasons if you are to test mechanics. Not the game-play. We test every release before we actually upload it. So i hope you enjoy the 2/3player game tomorrow. It is highly recommended. i recommend at least 1 of you is a healer. healer/dps is doable but not recommended.
- If you want to have a higher level of that skill at the cost of more mana, That is all up to you. Played Two worlds 2? Or oblivion? You can have spells that cost just to much mana for you to use. Same applies here.
- We are still into that. Then again we should limit leveling to level 30 or 40 because of this. We have gear and quests up to that level.

Have fun doing the 2player game.

Smileynator

Click to expand...

My review:
-On the balancing 45 levels, it's just as hard to balance three levels as 45, you simply use a scaling value
-If your talking about Elder Scrolls 4, then yes I played Oblivion but, in oblivion, you decide how your stats look and increase, there also isn't a hard level limit on spells, in your games case, neither of these are true.
-I found three quests after the original...
-It became unbalanced at level 25, the healer ran oom before we half killed one mob, and alot of the mobs are in large chains. I figure we should have been fine all the way up, considering you said it was 2-4 recommended players for the game.
-The player respawns need to be redone.

Partner's review:
-To start, I was playing as the healer, and even with the "best items" at level 25 i ceased to be able to heal! Vengance is absolutely useless consuming over 1/2 my mana while my healing spells took a little over 1/10 my mana per cast. Healer's main stat is agility, why?
-Another issue i saw was that the tank had negative armor points... WHY? Is he naked or something? I doubt it. All heroes, and not just the tank need some kind of armor rating.
-My last point im going to make here is that Chaos Damage from 3-4 enemys that hit 100-150 on a tank with 2500 hp and I can only cast ten heals for no more than 670 damage for 100+ mana? I run oom in the first 10 seconds of the fight. You would need 1 tank 1 healer and 8 dps to make that fight PLAUSIBLE because that is only the first demon pull. Following that is a pull of 6-8 and if you try and move a little, thats about 14. not even 10 people even 3 or 4 being healers could survive that without ooming and not dying.

Thank you for taking this into consideration,
Lokaatr

Anyway, me again, we've changed our rating system to allow for a 6/5 but, only if you earn 5/5. So you've lost one of your free points giving you a 1/5. It was for a custom loading screen which we found, were useless in general. Also what does yours have to do with Ashenvale?

This map could be good if you were to fix its main issues.

Sincerely,
Dofc

Now this is a reply i can work with, Thanks for that before all other.
let's keep it in the order you put your statements:
- The leveling thing may be way more simple in your eyes, Maybe it is and i didn't discover it yet. However, i will look into this system, as a lot of problems seem to point that way, maybe i should make it more static, and less mana sucking aggressive.
- You do not know how far we will go with item's implementation. Maybe we will even allow you to buy skills/attributes? However no excuse. Same as the above, damage done and mana loss points to that.
- There are a total of like 10 quests in the map at this moment:
Opening the door to town
After that you can go to the racoon ''mr. wiggles'' he gives you 3 follow up quests. Until you have slain the bandit lords.
then you get to go north (Still need some redirect quest to send you there) There you automatically get a peasant calling for help, it activates another quest for you to go save him deep in the swamp. If you do so, He points you to a orc camp, and allows you to take more quests from there at certain levels (These do not activate if you did not finish the swamp quest)
- I must admit not much testing has gone past level 18ish. So the higher up places are a bit unbalanced. The entering to the 2nd city is still way to easy (as a level 14 ish can run right to the end of the trail) and the demon forest is quite the pain in the ass. We have yet to pinpoint what exactly we are going to do. But we mostly blamed it at lack of gear (Seeing how these demons are level 20+ and you still wear level 10 gear if you buy all available greens.) If this does not fix the problem, once again redirected to point 1's problem.
- Player respawns need to be redone? I sure hope you are talking about the ''pick any town stone''? I plan to make players ''last visited town'' your link on the stone. and remove the other 2 stones in play.

Partner in gameplay:
- Point 1 above again.
- This idea, honestly was from the virus. But i do second his motion. It is so that if you move over it, You start with -10% damage (Aka, no armor) with later levels healers/DPS get some normal values (They are not supposed to have alot of armor, let tanks handle it) And tanks actually have to spend like 1 or 2 points in devine armor to get a positive armor value. It only occurs for the first 5ish levels.
- last point for you, This is also due to unbalanced, is that chaos damage the demons in the forest? We probably might need to Nerf those a bit. also, watch your pulls, gets out of hand quickly. do not expect to rush it.

Hmm custom loading screen, Because none standards are any good. and because i like the blood-elf's. We considered changing the maps name a week or 2 ago, But then we had no map name to go with AT ALL. Suggestions are welcome. The loading screen has no reason to change, so it'll stay right there until i ever find something better to fit.

As a last i must say all points above are discussed with my partner and will be taken into consideration.

Thanks for the honest review,
Sincerely,
Smileynator

Smileynator said:

Now this is a reply i can work with, Thanks for that before all other.
let's keep it in the order you put your statements:
- The leveling thing may be way more simple in your eyes, Maybe it is and i didn't discover it yet. However, i will look into this system, as a lot of problems seem to point that way, maybe i should make it more static, and less mana sucking aggressive.
- You do not know how far we will go with item's implementation. Maybe we will even allow you to buy skills/attributes? However no excuse. Same as the above, damage done and mana loss points to that.
- There are a total of like 10 quests in the map at this moment:
Opening the door to town
After that you can go to the racoon ''mr. wiggles'' he gives you 3 follow up quests. Until you have slain the bandit lords.
then you get to go north (Still need some redirect quest to send you there) There you automatically get a peasant calling for help, it activates another quest for you to go save him deep in the swamp. If you do so, He points you to a orc camp, and allows you to take more quests from there at certain levels (These do not activate if you did not finish the swamp quest)
- I must admit not much testing has gone past level 18ish. So the higher up places are a bit unbalanced. The entering to the 2nd city is still way to easy (as a level 14 ish can run right to the end of the trail) and the demon forest is quite the pain in the ass. We have yet to pinpoint what exactly we are going to do. But we mostly blamed it at lack of gear (Seeing how these demons are level 20+ and you still wear level 10 gear if you buy all available greens.) If this does not fix the problem, once again redirected to point 1's problem.
- Player respawns need to be redone? I sure hope you are talking about the ''pick any town stone''? I plan to make players ''last visited town'' your link on the stone. and remove the other 2 stones in play.

Partner in gameplay:
- Point 1 above again.
- This idea, honestly was from the virus. But i do second his motion. It is so that if you move over it, You start with -10% damage (Aka, no armor) with later levels healers/DPS get some normal values (They are not supposed to have alot of armor, let tanks handle it) And tanks actually have to spend like 1 or 2 points in devine armor to get a positive armor value. It only occurs for the first 5ish levels.
- last point for you, This is also due to unbalanced, is that chaos damage the demons in the forest? We probably might need to Nerf those a bit. also, watch your pulls, gets out of hand quickly. do not expect to rush it.

Hmm custom loading screen, Because none standards are any good. and because i like the blood-elf's. We considered changing the maps name a week or 2 ago, But then we had no map name to go with AT ALL. Suggestions are welcome. The loading screen has no reason to change, so it'll stay right there until i ever find something better to fit.

As a last i must say all points above are discussed with my partner and will be taken into consideration.

Thanks for the honest review,
Sincerely,
Smileynator

Click to expand...

Alright here is my response.Points are out of order >.>.

-Racoon is glitched, he hands out his first quest twice, then stops doing anything. I saw no peasant, possible due to the raccon being glitched.
-I was commenting based on the moment, not the future.
-Respawns, that is exactly what I ment.
-I already commented on items.

Now, my partner is not here but I can respond for them, for the moment, they may choose to edit this or repost later.
-I think he didn't like that you had it negative armor values at all, I don't like it either, it seems like a waste of time to me.
-We grabbed a single mob, seven more came, We tried to flee and quickly got many more, even more powerful, mobs.

My point on the loading screen was our rating system changed, and that you no longer can earn a point for loading screen unless you have 5/5 and it would give you a 6/5. Under the new rating system, which we used in this recent test, you got a 1/5. If you work on it more, balancing, powers, maybe a greater story, one that is linked together and not a random string of quests to get you through the zones, you might be able to get 5/5, 6/5 even.

Sincerely,
Dofc

- Racoon is a known issue, he is in the middle of a re-haul, but in all quest should be given if you have the correct level. However, this quest is not linked to any other and if you are high enough level to go upwards in the forest and the rest should just resume as normal.
- The peasant you ''didn't'' see is not to be seen. He is to be rescued. Either read the on screen quest info or hit your quest log and turn off your metal-head shattering music for 1 goddamn second. You could even HEAR the mob calling out for help?
- Re-spawns are fine, 10 people die, 10 people are revived in that order which takes a current wait time of 30 seconds. Might be made longer in the future.

- Negative armor is odd, But works fine.
- It is not possible to ''flee'' into ''more powerful'' mobs. Unless you retreat in a WAY other direction then the one you came in from. or wait for over 5 minutes in 1 spot to get the guys behind you to respawn!
- rating system 6/5 does not compute. 2nd, what system? you got like 30 posts, Of which 5 are from this map?

Last but not least! We simulated your situation in the demon forest upon our calculations.

we looked this up: you said Chaos damage, 100ish damage, that would be our demon forest, tank has 2500HP and you heal for 670HP.
Based on that we put our conclusion as so: To start, You hopped right passed the first 3 mobs. pulling them. Those you can kill. But then you walked right passed that pulling another 5/6ish demons on you. due to the 2500HP of the tank your tank must have been (As says my balance shard: level 55 without items. Or level 19 with EVERY item stacked into HP. instead of some AP.) And you (Judged by balance shard again: had a level 10 healing spell. If you had 3 points in normal attacks and 1 in your ultimate.) Seeing how this plays out, you had a healing skill being to weak to keep up, a tank just over 25 (because lower level, you cannot get in that area.) mostly stacked into HP items and not Strength. you total up to like the 14 mobs you described which killed you rather quickly.

I do not know how you usually play games. But if we place this in a normal world situation: I run into a group of 14 wild lions with a small first aid kit, no experience with lions, and a twig instead of a steel sword.

Conclusion: you were not supposed to even REMOTELY survive the above situation.

Have a nice day you 2. I got some homework to do. And the virus will look into some bugs today. Hereby this is the last reply to your posts, as we are just boosting our post counts. (Not good.)

Review: (map downloaded at 22nd February 2011, 0:31 GMT+1)

Terrain:

The terrain is rather weak.
I'll say this first, because it is a very basic mistake: don't import models because you think they look cool. Import them because they fit in your map.
Too much blizzard cliffs, there's barely any use of the raise/lower-tool (in a correct way), the tilesets are rather monotone and predictable, there's a huge lack of doodads.
To prove my statements with screenshots:


I do hope I don't need to elaborate this, I think the screenshot speaks for itself.


Problems:

• Flat terrain.
• Cinematic doodads
• Monotone tileset
• Lack of environmental doodads
• No real transition in the border (see top of the screenshot, where it becomes grass or dirt again).

Cliffs don't look like that.
And I do see a really nice model here, the model itself is very well-done, but... I just don't see how it fits here.
Not right next to an obelisk, or on a grassy cliff. No, that model is just completely wrong there.

The rest of this screenshot looks like a TD-lane from many years ago.


Polka dots aren't 'in' anymore.


Rather poorly executed waterfall.
The idea here is good, but it needs a lot more before I can say "hey, that's nice!" - doodads, for example.

Gameplay:

The first thing I want to note, mainly because it is extremly important, is that you should realize that quality is always better than quantity.
After the introduction cinematic, I immediately saw a lot of standard heroes with 'default' abilities (meaning slightly modified standard ones).
I know that this is your first map, and I do realize it is hard to make triggered spells, yet I still encourage you to create only... 5-6 heroes or something which are all very well thought-out (in a singleplayer RPG, even 3 heroes would've been enough).

Abilities are quite imbalanced.
Who cares about a 15% damage increase and +11 armor as the final level of his ultimate ability?
Why would anyone get to level 150 just for that 1% damage bonus (in comparison to the previous level) and +1 armor?
That's really not worth it. These bonusses aren't even permanent, it costs 1340 mana, which could be spent to deal a staggering 50.000 damage (2x War Stomp).
If I had the choice between receiving +65 damage for a minute (note: with a rather slow attack speed) or spend it on dealing some massive insta-damage, I believe I made my choice.

There's lag when a gate opens, something which should definitely be fixed.
Also, the system wasn't sure whether I was leaving or entering the city, because it always said "entering" (even when I left).

Critical strike bug:
This deserves another title.
On of the most unknown bugs in warcraft is that the critical strike ability rounds the chance up to 5%
So a chance of 9% will result in 10%, a chance of 12% will also result in a 10% crit-chance. (it will become 15% starting from 12.5%)


What it actually says:

• Level 1: 10% chance x2
• Level 2: 10% chance x2
• Level 3: 10% chance x2

Making it the most useless ability to level ever.

More info about this subject.

Objects:

Simple things to note here.
One of them is the quest "find the farmer's wife", the name of the object you're looking for is "High Elf" - it would've been far better if you actually named here "Farmer's Wife" or something.
And don't use standard hero names... I don't want to be named "Buzan the Fearless" when playing as an agile night-elf like DPSer.

Another main problem are items.
There are only a few items you actually made yourself, while a good ORPG requires about 95% custom items (100% recommended).
And those items still don't add any significant bonusses. At level 150 I still had this agonizingly slow attack speed and my attack was extremely low as well (base damage was good, but even with the best damage-based equipment I could possibly get I only had +102 damage, while monsters have over 35k HP.

Not all values have been used: armor has pretty much been neglected (always left standard).
Same goes for attack speed.
And you know it gets sad when a level 83-creep deals half the damage a level 3-creep does, with only a slightly faster attack speeed.

The tooltips are all a load of rubbish.
Redo them, all of them.
To say where you went wrong: see the screenshot above (critical strike bug) and then realize there are 45 levels, not 3.

My point: DO NOT edit standard units, items or abilities!
Always create your own
And organize them! This is for your own good! I had to search over the entire object editor to find 'that one unit', while you simply could have put all heroes in the "human" race, all creeps in the "orc" race etc.
Organizing makes it so much easier for you to edit your map...

Triggers:

Memory leaks and inefficient coding. Not surprising after reviewing the rest of your map though.
You should definitely learn how to use If/then/else-functions and loops in a way that improves the efficiency of your coding.
And learn how to remove all memory leaks.

Conclusion:

Sorry to say, but this is a poorly executed ORPG.
Of course, maps like these are a great way to learn how to map and I don't want to discourage you (perhaps too late for that?)

Fact is that you two didn't play enough with the editor, you were thinking too much in clear lines.
This results in a very basic ORPG (pick hero warchaser-style --> help woman by killing creeps --> enter forest (why always a forest as the first actual level!? --> grind slowly to level up).

Another problem is that you should organize yourselves a lot better.
Everything was pure chaos, from triggers to objects to the entire gameplay.
Heavily imbalanced abilities, objects that resembled the standard ones way too far, unimaginative terrain and gameplay progress.

Good luck with future projects, but this one is rejected here on the hive.

I do hope you are going to respond to this though. It's quite a complete review, besides the fact that it leaves me wondering if i actually DID do anything correctly in this map..

Besides that another note i have to get off my chest: YOU WERE CHEATING O_O. As in, Some of those areas named above (hell goes over into grass areas etc.) Are not open to public yet.

I am not going to respond to any points you made at this moment. Instead i will evaluate this post together wit the virus this evening.

On the messy programming part (as programming IS mostly my thing.) I am currently still in school and i am learning C#. Meaning that i will soon start to understand various idiotic memory leaks i never knew existed. (Well i do know, I just do not know how to spot and fix them)

Furthermore, The 3 second audio lag whenever you enter a new region is because of music changes, if you got a tip on how to fix that, i'd be glad to take it.

The region entering problem is already known, For easiness of editing we did not yet cover all areas in 1 giant region. And you are probably going to state this is something you could ''program'' it to know weather someone is actually leaving or entering an area.

About our editor chaos, Assuming you bypassed our easy map protection. Yes i admit we get kind of chaotic, and i try to get the virus to be less chaotic at it. Yet even i didn't have the bright idea to group them into certain ''human'' ''orc'' groups etc.

I actually thought i did quite well on the tool-tips, any idea how those could be done better? (as in, not making 45 lines of text there stating every level ?)

Well those are all my points/questions for now. If i only had a bit more time from my study i could actually start digging into them.

About discouragement, I am up for a challenge. Let's hope the virus is as well.

Thanks for the review,
Smileynator

Haha, yes: I cheated ^^
Do you think that is strange? I did start off without cheats, played it as you usually would. From the moment I get a good view on the gameplay (without cheats), I turn some cheats on to quickly advance and see how the gameplay is on later levels, or to easily check shops, elites etc.

I also did bypass the protection, because it is just so much easier for me to start off with the editor-version and then compare the editor data with the in-game results.
Protection is very annoying when reviewing a map...
(I do advise you to either optimize your map, or leave it unprotected - just protecting it so others cannot open it is a stupid idea).
Also, "kind of chaotic" is an understatement

About the audio delay: I didn't see how you coded it, but I've never had any trouble when using call PlayMusic(music path)
About the entering/leaving: how about creating a boolean variable (arrayed, for each player) set it to true when the hero is inside the city and to false when the hero is somewhere else. That way you can easily check whether it should be "entering" or "leaving".

If you're going to have tooltips which have to cover 45 levels, make sure you make some easy formula.
An example would be:
+5% chance per 3 levels (for critical strike or something).
Doing it like you did only creates confusion (we don't want to know which values the first 3 levels had if we're already at level 3 or higher!)

Smileynator said:

it leaves me wondering if i actually DID do anything correctly in this map.

Click to expand...

I've seen worse. Doesn't mean much, but you can derive that you had to do a few things correctly.
My point is that the map requires a fair amount of work.

Don't forget that an ORPG is the most difficult genre, as it combines all mapping skills into one map (your code needs to be lag-free, you need complex MUI-systems, the gameplay must be as polished as possible to let people play the same map for multiple hours, the objects need to be interesting etc...).
Creating an ORPG on itself is a real challenge, let alone a decent one.


One more question: what 'virus' are you talking about the entire time?

You do so much work on writing a description with authors and all, Yet nobody cares to read it.

that ''virus'' i talk about is my friend i build this map with. Smileynator and The_Virus are our online nicknames (But he prefers to go as snowbell lately.. but thats offtopic)

our roles are kinda like this:
The virus:
Mapping, Mob creation/tweaking, Item creation
smiley:
Coding, Tweaking, Skill scaling.

So as you talked about the tooltip's you were directing that at my department. some things are not made by me, and those i have to talk over with my friend.

Hence our map being a bit chaotic, since i have ''little'' structure (Seen the triggers in directories? That is my work.) and the virus practically has none (Unit,items, all over the place) (Yet i have to admit i never had the idea to name all hero's as a human class. i guess it served ''some'' purpose.)

We both have our specialty and our limits. As i am ''ok'' with the warcraft coding. But JASS is way over my head and hard to follow for me at this point. So making custom skills using dummy's and crap like that. And also make those ''loophole free'' is about the same as asking me to climb the mount everest in my undies at this moment. Luckily we got some recourses that does scripts for you. But those are not guaranteed to be ''good''. (Hence why we stick to normal skills until probably later in the beta)

Balance is new to us in general. I did my best to balance skills with the 4 available hero's i have a fancy graph here with all level HP/Mana Data of all units and upon those i based most damages and heals. (If you got a better system, name it. It's all i could come up with without going like: Eh lets make it static >.> as that is no fun.)

Doodads you named ''not there'' as in the cliffs. The cliffs is practically, level 70ish mobs? Our map is tweaked upto level 20ish for now. You can level higher, but there is no item nor other stuff to support you at this moment. Hence the details are mainly in the first parts of the map and not in our latest. (Look at the hero selection part, thats the latest place we ''revamped'') And our problem was that we hit our frikkin doodad limit!

Luckily we fixed this with the custom editor we found, we should now be able to detail all we want as long as we keep it within 8MB. (I went looking for this bc of the limit.)

Oh the audio lag: I as programmer did not look into that script yet. The last script the_virus created made a loop that teleported me to infinite in a test run, with a War3 crash after that. So i can probably fix it when i get a look at it.

Not saying the virus is bad, but programming is not his top priority.

I currently have all my spare time in school work. I have just finished 3 hours of work in Visual basic with C# to get the hang of objects and classes. (Which i finally start to get.)
So my personal excuses for scripts being messed up, it is basically something i left half done because of my study. It works, but thats it. (Seen the respawn script? It's my work when i DO finish a job. Do mind you it probably isn't the most effective script but hey.)

The protection is actually there to keep faggots from stealing maps from us. I do not mind pro's to have a look into it (as you did) but i do mind faggots going in there ripping my scripts and stealing our ideas from the source. Some data in there is still hidden in our releases because it was not ready yet.

Cheating is ok btw, This is a BETA and we even added BETA ONLY cheating scripts for this purpose. The problem is that you began ranting places we did not mean to be public yet. Which is just about anything above the middle of the map. (The hell zone for instance is just a test zone for a boss at this moment, you do not belong there AT ALL.)
However, maybe we should clean up before releases a bit more instead of just disable of malfunctioning triggers before release?

the array's are new to me, but sounds like a good thing. I will add this to our todo list.

The tooltip problem:
Heh, Well that is my bad as stated above. I was like: Ooh ill try make them look as close to originals as possible! (I was even proud when we together found out how we could get custom skills value's to auto update in tooltip's, as we didn't know there <A001,DataA1> things. We just recently discovered how they work.) Probably standard is not the way to go.

that brings me to the next. Standard is probably not the way to go at all. We replace music, we tried to replace skins but to much cool skins just size up the map to fast. But basically we have to customize everything we can, huh?

However mad i could be at your for voting our map down, We got what we wanted. We got feedback. And a proper source of it.

So now i kind of have a question towards you. How do we improve the next attempt? We stick to this map of course. But how can we upload an early release? (Lets say we make everything solid, items skills, hero's and all that up to level 30 for that beta.) What is the smartest move to make from here?

In short:
Is there a list you would recommend us to stick to before our next release.
As in things we should do to call them an actual release.
And would a solid version that only goes up to level 30 for instance, Be good enough for a release?

I would like to hear some more information from you soon, And get this map to work for the hives and it's users.
- Smileynator, The Virus.